How to Read Font Metadata — Every Field Explained

When you open a font file in a metadata viewer, you see a list of fields. Some are obvious — the family name, the designer. Others are cryptic — fsType, weight class, unicode ranges. And some are genuinely important but often overlooked — the version number, the license URL, the embedding permissions.

This guide explains every field the WildandFree Font Metadata Viewer surfaces and what each one actually means for designers, developers, and anyone making licensing decisions.

Identification Fields: Name, Designer, Version

Family name — the official name of the font family as declared by its creator. This is the name you'd expect to see in a font menu — "Helvetica Neue," "Inter," "Playfair Display." It comes from nameID 1 or nameID 16 in the name table.

Designer — the name of the type designer or design team. This field (nameID 9) is separate from the vendor or foundry and credits the actual human who drew the letterforms.

Version — a version string set by the font author (nameID 5). Examples: "Version 1.003," "Version 3.001 2021." This string matters when troubleshooting rendering differences across systems or confirming you have the same file version as a collaborator.

Copyright — the copyright notice (nameID 0). Usually in the form "Copyright (c) Designer Name, Year." This establishes who owns the intellectual property.

License Fields: License Text, License URL

License text (nameID 13) — the full license for the font, embedded directly in the file. Not all fonts include this. When present, it's the authoritative statement of what you can and cannot do with the font.

License URL (nameID 14) — a URL pointing to the license online. Fonts that use stable, publicly hosted licenses (like OFL or Apache 2.0) often just include the URL rather than the full text. Both approaches are valid.

If neither field is populated, the font author didn't embed license information — which is common in older freeware fonts and fonts bundled with software. Absence of a license field doesn't mean the font is public domain. Check the distributor's website or treat the font as restricted for commercial purposes.

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Embedding Permissions: The fsType Flag

The fsType value is part of the OS/2 table and controls how the font may be embedded in documents and web pages. The numeric values map to:

• 0 — Installable. No restrictions. Can be embedded freely; recipients may install.
• 4 — Print and Preview. Can be embedded in PDFs and documents for viewing and printing, but recipients can't install the font from the document.
• 8 — Editable. Can be embedded in documents that users are allowed to edit.
• 2 — Restricted. No embedding permitted. Using this font in a CSS @font-face or a PDF violates the license.

Note: OFL-licensed fonts typically have fsType 0. However, some older fonts were released with permissive licenses before the fsType standard was consistently applied — you may occasionally see a mismatch. The license text is generally considered authoritative over the fsType value.

Technical Fields: Weight Class, Glyph Count, Unicode Ranges

Weight class — a numeric value (100–900) from the OS/2 table's usWeightClass field. The standard mapping is: 100=Thin, 200=ExtraLight, 300=Light, 400=Regular, 500=Medium, 600=SemiBold, 700=Bold, 800=ExtraBold, 900=Black. This value is used by the operating system to match CSS font-weight declarations to the correct font file.

Glyph count — the total number of glyphs in the font. A basic Latin font might have 230 glyphs. A comprehensive multilingual font can have 3,000 or more. This is useful for comparing coverage between font versions and for understanding how much of a language's character set the font supports.

Unicode ranges — which Unicode blocks the font covers: Basic Latin, Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, and so on. This tells you at a glance whether a font supports a specific language's character set without needing to test individual characters.

Putting Metadata to Practical Use

For web developers: check the fsType value before embedding a font in CSS. Check the unicode ranges to confirm the font covers the languages your site supports. Match the weight class value to what you're specifying in font-weight.

For graphic designers: check the version string when you receive a font from a client — it tells you immediately whether you have the same version they're using. Compare glyph counts between a "complete" and "trial" version of the same font.

For legal and licensing: read the license text field before using a font in a commercial project. The embedded text is more authoritative than a website description. Note the copyright holder for proper attribution where required.

For font managers and studios: use the version string and family name to maintain accurate inventories across multiple machines. The family name field is the canonical name — not the filename, which may be abbreviated or modified.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is fsType in a font file?

fsType is a numeric flag in the OS/2 table that controls font embedding permissions. A value of 0 means unrestricted. A value of 2 means restricted (no embedding). Values 4 and 8 allow limited embedding scenarios.

Do all fonts have metadata embedded?

Not all fonts have every metadata field populated. The family name and copyright fields are almost always present. License text is often absent in older freeware fonts. The fsType field is present in all compliant OpenType/TrueType fonts.

What does weight class 400 mean?

Weight class 400 corresponds to "Regular" weight in the standard scale (100=Thin through 900=Black). It's the value used by operating systems to match the font to font-weight: 400 in CSS.